Brawl in El BarrioDebate en El Barrio

Brawl in El Barrio

Residents push back v. East Harlem rezoning plan

“We’re headed in the same direction,” said N.E.R.V.E.’s General Manager Bob Anazagasti.

History seems to be repeating itself for Charles Bridges.

But he’s pushing for a different ending.

A native of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Bridges said he was essentially forced out of that neighborhood due to gentrification and skyrocketing rent costs.

He moved to East Harlem eight years ago, but is filled with dread that the city’s proposal to rezone his current neighborhood could bring the similar result.

“I see the same thing happening in East Harlem,” Bridges remarked. “That kind of thing decimates a community.”

Bridges is concerned that rezoning efforts will lead to high-cost housing that is out of touch with a neighborhood where the median income is about $23,500.

“The low-income people need somewhere to live,” he added. “We want to keep our community, and have our children grow up here too. We want to make sure the mom and pop businesses aren’t affected. This neighborhood is a real community.”

A member of activist group Community Voices Heard (CVH), Bridges is among the many residents voicing concerns over the city’s East Harlem Neighborhood Plan, which would rezone an extensive band of the neighborhood between East 104th and 132nd Streets from Park to Second Avenues, and also between East 126th and 132nd Streets between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

The city’s Department of City Planning (DCP) first unveiled the proposal at an October 16 meeting of Community Board 11, where DCP Planner Calvin Brown informed residents that the plan included 4,162 new apartments to be built for 10,000 new residents.

The plan would also provide for better pedestrian access, increased public space and improved transit infrastructure, Brown said.

The proposal was first unveiled in October.

To accomplish the plan, the city would apply Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) as a baseline for most of the rezoning in residential areas.

Though approximately 37 percent of East Harlem households make an income of about $23,000 and below, affordable housing advocates bemoaned that this income level is routinely left out of discussions regarding rezoning in the neighborhood.

The group hosts weekly community meetings.

“We see rezoning as a direct threat to our community,” stated Roger Hernández, leader of advocacy group El Barrio Unite and a lifelong East Harlem resident. “We don’t want to get pushed out of our neighborhood.”

Bridges recalled that once Williamsburg began to gentrify, he was made to feel like an outsider in his own community.

“Once the neighborhood changed, people would look at me funny, like ‘What are you doing here?’ And I’m the one who grew up there.”

“But this time, we see an opportunity to do something about it before history repeats,” he added.

At a community meeting at Taino Towers on November 17, tensions boiled over when members of CVH and El Barrio Unite interrupted a presentation by DCP about the rezoning plan.

A CVH leader who identified herself as Robyn shouted on a megaphone as DCP’s Brown attempted to present the city’s proposal to attendees.

“We don’t want to get pushed out of our neighborhood,” said Roger Hernández.

Manhattan Deputy Borough President Matthew Washington, an East Harlem native, attempted to calm protesters at the event.

However, members of El Barrio Unite continued to shout above the presentation, hindering Brown from continuing his full presentation. City officials proceeded to meet with residents for smaller group discussions.

“There were a number of people at the meeting who were there to hear the presentation from City Planning, so it was disappointing that couldn’t continue,” Washington told Manhattan Times afterwards.

“But people having concerns is absolutely understandable,” he said. “There is a real fear in East Harlem of looming gentrification.”

Hernández downplayed his group’s disruption of the meeting, stressing that members were simply ensuring their voices were heard by city officials.

“We emphasized that we’re not going to be taken for granted,” he commented. “We weren’t trying to be disrespectful.”

El Barrio Unite formed about three years ago, an outgrowth of nonprofit N.E.R.V.E, which was founded in 1975 and has helped develop several housing projects in the neighborhood.

Using a storefront on 116th Street, El Barrio Unite hosts weekly community meetings, which Hernández said draw about 50 people each time.

“People are afraid,” remarked group member Rafael Cora. “They’re the ones who built this community and they want to be able to stay here.”

Hernández suggested that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s MIH policies do nothing to assist those earning less than 30 percent of AMI.

“It’s really disturbing to us,” he said. “We have an administration that was elected based on a promise to help low-income New Yorkers, but are they really helping those who need it most?”

“La Fortaleza” is designed as an affordable housing development.

CVH representatives said that their group wants to ensure that 30 percent of the total housing is affordable to families making $23,000 and less, and that 40 percent of the housing on public land be affordable to that income bracket.

Bob Anazagasti, General Manager of N.E.R.V.E., said that the city needs to be more transparent regarding affordability levels that could be incorporated into rezoning efforts.

“We want a written draft,” said Anazagasti. “We need to see the affordability details in writing, and we’re going to monitor them all the way.”

Members of CVH are also advocating for the city to allocate $200 million for upgrades at Harlem-area New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments.

In May, the city announced plans to develop a 400-unit affordable housing complex on publicly-owned land parcels at East 111th and East 112th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues.

Hernández explained that El Barrio Unite had submitted a detailed proposal to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) for an affordable housing complex at the site.

“People are afraid,” said Rafael Cora.

The group has dubbed the development “La Fortaleza,” which means “The Fortress.”

It consists of two 29-story residential towers, featuring 710 units of affordable housing, as well as 70,000 square feet of community space and 39,000 square feet of commercial space.

According to the proposal, 64 percent of the units would be reserved for households making $29,000 or less.

When HPD issued its Request for Proposal this summer, the agency indicated it would give preference to projects that include a significant number of units for low- and very low-income residents.

Hernández said that HPD has yet to respond to his group’s proposal.

The plan would rezone an extensive swath between East 104th and 132nd Streets.

An HPD spokesperson said the agency hopes to select a winning proposal by the end of the year, and indicated that all applicants will receive notification of the final decision and be given an opportunity for feedback.

While noting that rezoning was “a hot political issue,” Anazagasti said he was hopeful that the city and residents could work together on a solution that benefits the neediest members of the community.

The proposed rezoning is in Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito’s district.

“We’re headed in the same direction, just on different tracks right now,” he remarked. “They’re looking at it from a political perspective, while we’re coming from a community perspective.”

Having grown up in Mitchell Lama housing, Washington said he comes from “a place of understanding” about community reluctance to embrace rezoning.

He stated that the Borough President’s office intends to work with residents throughout the process to alleviate concerns, and called on the city to give full attention to their feedback on income levels.

“We’re really looking for the administration to address the lower levels of affordability, because it’s really needed in this community,” Washington remarked.

Hernández questioned whether rezoning was even needed to build low-income housing, noting that developments elsewhere in the city were being built with 100 percent affordable housing, mostly in conjunction with nonprofits.

The group protested at City Hall.

“There’s no rezoning necessary,” Hernández said. “We could get it done without it.”

Conversely, Washington suggested that if rezoning is not conducted, it could lead to more construction projects getting done without including affordable housing.

CVH members speak out at meeting.

“The challenge of no rezoning is that if someone wants to develop in the area, it can be 100 percent market rate,” said Washington.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district includes East Harlem, has advocated for 100 percent affordable units to be built on public land, and for ensuring that 50 percent of all new apartments built in the neighborhood remain affordable.

Mark-Viverito led the steering committee for the East Harlem Neighborhood plan, which featured the participation of over 1,300 East Harlem residents in seven workshops, as well as community surveys, and eight meetings of Community Board 11.

The community-focused process is “something that we have not seen in any other neighborhood in New York,” Mark-Viverito said at a community planning forum earlier this year.

“I represent the community, so my decision is that if there’s an interest in rezoning my neighborhood, my interest is to get my community to provide input, so I decided to be proactive instead of reactive,” she said.

Still, some have decried Mark-Viverito’s tactics with critics of the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan ― she was quoted in an AM New York article as referring to protestors as “anarchists” who “say no just to be contrarian.”

Deputy Borough President Matthew Washington said he comes from “a place of understanding.”

Hernández bristled at that suggestion, and said he was hoping the Council Speaker took critiques of the plan seriously.

“These are the people who live in her district, so I hope she’s paying attention to what we have to say,” he said.

While El Barrio Unite opposes rezoning altogether, that is not the case for CVH, which provided input for the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan.

“We’re not against rezoning,” said Bridges. “We think the Neighborhood Plan has its merits. We do need change, but we need to protect the community.”

On December 15, the city will host a public scoping meeting on the East Harlem rezoning at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work at 2180 Third Avenue.

The meeting will be held in two sessions, at 2 p.m. and again at 6 p.m.

“This is not a public hearing, but rather an opportunity for the public to shape the environmental review,” said DCP spokesperson Rachaele Raynoff.

An environmental review on the scope of the full East Harlem Neighborhood Plan, factoring in more than just rezoning issues, must be completed prior to the start of the Uniform Land Use and Review Procedure (ULURP).

The ULURP public review process, which requires City Council and Community Board approval, is slated to begin next April, Raynoff said.

Bridges insisted that it was important for community residents to keep up the level of advocacy shown at the recent Taino Towers meeting.

“At least we will make sure we’re heard,” he remarked. “We’re not invisible, we’re right here.”